Track Review ⊙ Daily Ops Home
T-Pain f/ Akon :: "Bartender"From Epiphany (Jive; 2007)
T-Pain is too fucking good to be true. From the inscrutable name to the Predator dreadlocks, the man might be the best embodiment of R&B comedy this side of Kels. Excuse me, "Hard & B," as T-Pain dubs his music. Wait, T, you think because you're associated with Konvict Muzik, you're hard? Because mealy-mouthed Akon has your back? If, like a videogame, delusion has stages, T-Pain's about to beat Galaga.
Similar to a lot of catchy contemporary R&B hits, the music of "Bartender" is built on one iridescent hook, one little novelty of a chopped and distorted key line that's almost ingenious in and of itself -- but isn't developed into anything more. Doesn't matter, though, because T-Pain quickly takes over so that then the music and whatever its pithy concerns might be are instantly forgotten. T-Pain glues his vocals to the core melody, but what's really striking is how the poor dude seems to become emotionally attached to anyone or anything he meets in a club. First it was a stripper, now it's the bartender? T-Pain's so nearly endearing in how goofily unsure he is of himself ("I think she thinks I'm cool") and in how he'll throw in dumb fratty asides ("She made us drinks to drink / We drunk 'em / Got drunk"), you almost feel, ahem, pained for him because he
doesn't realize that the bartender's winking in hopes of a bigger tip.
Akon echoes half of everything T-Pain says and then has a verse at the end that you probably won't even realize isn't T-Pain until Akon asks for the keys to T-Pain's car -- so as to go home and "bang bang boogie" with his girl. It's cute. They're like clueless college roommates or two peas of a pod destined to recombine at some point. Like "Dead Ringers (The Remix)." Just don't expect their silly-ass song to live longer that however long it is you can laugh at it.
Chet Betz :: 10 August 2007 |
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